The Non-Arab Monuments

Name of the book: The N-n-Arab Monuments or Shiraz Nameh, is the name of a book on geography, history and historical monuments, in addition to the biographies of poets and famous figures of Fars (province in southern Iran) and about the beliefs and customs of this province and other parts of Iran; in Persian. It was written by Muhammad Nasir Hosseini, known as “Forsat Shirazi”, Persian poet and scholar. The author was familiar enough with English, therefore he used the English resources as well as those of Persians.

####The author
Mirza Muhammad Nasir, Forsat al-Doleh (1854-1920), born in Shiraz, was a painter, poet, musician and literary man. He was also expert at logic, philosophy and jurisprudenc. Forsat learned English language and was the first person who knew cuneiform. He was buried in Shiraz-Iran, beside Hafez's tomb.

Works:
- The great sea (about music)
- Book of Shiraz (about the history and geography of Shiraz), etc.

Structure of the book:
The book consists of the following subjects:
1- On the history and beliefs of poets, kings, philosophers and artists in Fars.
2- Historical, geographical and archeological information about Fars and some other parts of Iran
3- A brief about Islam history and the Prophet’s companions, the philosophers before Islam, the early and late theosophists, the Arab poets and scholars’ biographies
4- Scientific subject on philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, etc.
5- Selected poems of Iranians and Arabs’ poets
6- Some of the author’s poems
7- Explanation for the historical monuments of Egypt, Babylon, etc.
8- The author’s travelogue (he started traveling from Bushehr to Baghdad and described all the places and historical monuments he had visited)
9- Description of Shiraz (the capital of Fars), its buildings, mosques, gardens, shrines and the biographies of the philosophers, physicians, poets and calligraphers of Shiraz.
10- A list of the rulers in Shiraz (from Muhammad Ibn Yusuf Thaqafi’s era in 692 to Rukn al-Dawleh Mirza, son of Muhammad Shah Qajar in 1895), from rule of the rulers Abdul Malek Ibn Marwan Umawi up to Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar. This part is the most important part of the book.

Publication
The book first was published in 1896 in Bombay, and then in 1935 in Tehran.

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